


Plan B

by Fission



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, F/M, Gen, I am terrible at tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1462801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fission/pseuds/Fission
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Let’s play a game,” the nogitsune says gleefully. “And let’s make it interesting.”</p><p>“What’s the wager?” she asks.</p><p>“You know as well as I do it’s not a what,” it sneered. “If all three of you win a game of my devising then you save Stiles. I will relinquish my claim and never come back. But, if you fail, if even one of you fails, I will bleed him dry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plan B

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you frantically try to finish something in the middle of the night to get it in by the end of Stydia week. I don't even know what this is. Find me at: dannymaheallani.tumblr.com

Even in the dark, when she wakes up to the inside of her eyelids, he still whispers to her.

 ***

Lydia had gone over to her father’s for Friday night dinner. She was twenty minutes late because of an incident involving Scott and a vagabond werewolf. Her dad was already sitting at the table. With shaking hands, she smoothed a napkin on her lap. There was a resigned smile on her dad’s face as he poured apple juice to have with the plate of lukewarm lasagna and stale pre-thawed garlic bread on her place setting.

She could tell he didn’t think he was a priority for her anymore. And, on the miniscule chance she would ever let herself admit it to anyone, herself included, he wasn’t. Somewhere between unearthing the secret that her ex-boyfriend was a murderous shapeshifter controlled by a vengeful teenager and finding dead bodies before they’re fully cold, the list of things that mattered to Lydia Martin shifted dramatically, for better or worse.

 ***

Above her, a sharp light falls in a circular perimeter of less than six feet around her, coloring her skin a diluted white. Everything outside of the circle is a void. There are shackles, branches, connected to a single chain that snakes into a hole in the ground. She pulls hard at the restraints, but that gets her nowhere. She holds her hand out. Five fingers. This isn’t a dream.

“Oh, Lydia.” A voice sings from the void in front of her. Heavy footsteps thud near. A face floods into her vision and her heart seizes. Stiles. No, not Stiles; it has his face, but nothing about the thing in front of her is Stiles. Dead eyes. Slow, calculated movements. The nogitsune crouches down to look at her on leveled terms.

“Don’t bother screaming; no one’s coming for you,” it says with a wide, unnatural smile that digs into Stiles’ face. “For any of you.”

“Any?” She manages.

“There are two adjoining room. In one is Scott, in the other is your Sheriff. Do you want to guess why?” He tilts into her, until they are almost touching.

Her mouth dries. “Stiles. The three people he cares most about.”

The nogitsune laughs, ugly and guttural, and leaps to his feet. “Ding, ding! Good, Lydia, very, very good! Always knew you would figure it out first.” He twirls around in gleeful delight, before stopping abruptly. “Course, you were wrong about one thing. Caring is irrelevant. I want substance. The three who knows him the best. Because knowledge, knowledge is fascinating, isn’t it Lydia? His father, his best friend, and –”

“And me,” Lydia murmurs, exhaling a breath she didn’t know she was holding. The nogitsune grins with too much teeth.

 ***

She stalled her car in the middle of the street because she heard buzzing. There was a steadiness in its consistency and frequency, but unlike the noise she heard the day Barrow took Kira, this sounded more like a ringing deep in her eardrums.

She had a baseball bat she swiped from Stiles’ house and pepper spray and she slammed the car door behind her. Scott had told her long ago, back when she was still MIA from school because Jennifer Blake was a lunatic and news of a teacher-student strangulation attempt had reporters descending on Beacon Hills, that if anything happened, she should scream. _Scream_ , Scott said, pointing to his ear, _scream and I’ll hear you._

A shadow emerged from the sewer and she screamed until she couldn’t hear the buzzing anymore. Scott never showed up.

 ***

“Let’s play a game,” the nogitsune says gleefully. “And let’s make it interesting.”

“What’s the wager?” she asks.

“You know as well as I do it’s not a what,” it sneered. “If all three of you win a game of my devising then you save Stiles. I will relinquish my claim and never come back. But, if you fail, if even one of you fails, I will bleed him dry.”

Lydia lifts herself onto her feet, holding her head high. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Trust?” It grins manically. “Trust is for the weak, but I’m not lying.”

There is a cavernous wound on her left knee that won’t coagulate. She doesn’t remember anything before dinner with her dad. And the pathways of her brain are firing rapid responses of fear mechanisms to run. All she wants to do is give in, but she doesn’t. She nods in agreement.

“You’ll need this.” The nogitsune hands her a perforated ten-inch knife and lingers on her wrist, its long fingers dancing on her skin.

“And what am I supposed to do with this?” she asks, breaking contact.

“Simple,” it replies, wetting its bottom lip. “Kill everything that’s not him.”

The nogitsune slithers dangerously close again until she holds the knife against its stomach. It pushes in a little bit more, its skin wrapping around the tip, teasing her for a reaction, head cocked to one side. She keeps her face blank and it chuckles, snaps its fingers. Suddenly, all the lights in the room hum on.

Lydia’s knees buckle. Before her is a room full of perfect clones of Stiles. Every last one stares at her like they can read her thoughts.

 ***

The werewolf who wandered into their territory is just a kid, a bloodthirsty fucked-up kid. He’d been alone for a while. Devout Christian background and family who thought he was lucifer incarnate.

They cornered him in the parking lot of the hospital, crouched behind a minivan with a ‘Baby on Board’ sticker. Scott, Derek, Lydia versus an omega. The kid shook, bone rattled against bone. He cried, _No one can help me. I’m a lost cause_ , and lunged at Lydia with full moons reflected in his eyes. Derek dragged him down in midair.

There was no decency in what happened next.

 ***

Lydia discovers quickly that just because they all look the same, doesn’t mean they’re identical in nature. Some are too violent and savage; others too densely stupid or optimistic. She walks around, newly freed from her chains, and categorizes them, pulls them into two groups: the not Stiles and the maybes. There are 25 of them. She’s sure about five.

Her first victim is a sickly looking one, like somehow he’s the runt of the group. She separates him from the rest, her hands shaking against his checkered shirt collar.

“Get down,” she orders, careful to control the tremor in her voice, in every cell of her core.

Stiles #1 kneels obediently, and she circles him, decides the best way to end it cleanly is to reach around his neck and slice alongside his collarbone, cutting his carotid arteries. Tender skin with hardly any bones to saw through. Fast enough work that her nerves won’t get in the way. She jumps back when she hears him.

“Please,” Stiles #1 begs over his shoulder. “Please, Lydia, it’s me. It’s me.”

Lydia, her arm held in position, slices down into the air. She turns on the nogitsune, furious. “You never told me they could talk,” she spits. Underneath her, Stiles #1 trembles with silent sobs.

“Never said they couldn’t,” the nogitsune answers casually, leaning on one of the other Stiles.

 ***

Monsters are supposed to disappear when you get older, not come back.

 ***

The knife dips into his throat and, with a slight tug and a gurgle, blood gushes out, spilling all over her forearm. He bleeds out within seconds. She rubs her arm with the hem of her dress until it’s pink and raw and wonders if it counts as a murder if he isn’t real.

 ***

Stiles didn’t show up for first period Economics. Lydia texted him underneath her desk as discretely as she could. _Where are you?_

The answer vibrated back immediately. _Don’t worry about it._

 ***

“You look like you’re enjoying this.”

Lydia ignores it while she weaves through the remaining four not Stiles.

“Come on, you’re not even a teensy bit curious as to how the other two are faring?” the nogitsune asks, following her.

The truth is she has been dying to know how Scott and the Sheriff are, if they're having better luck. Stiles’ life shouldn’t depend on her. She’s known him for the shortest time. The weak link. It makes her nauseous thinking about Stiles dying by her hands.

“Fine, tell me. How many Stiles have they slain?” she replies, not giving it the satisfaction of looking at it. She sizes up Stiles #2, holds his hands. No electric jolts connecting their touch. She can feel so acutely that it isn’t him.

“Oh no, no, no. Give me more credit than that,” the nogitsune says in mock pique, “You’re all playing different games, made specifically to showcase what it is you fear most.”

Lydia puts Stiles #2 into a chokehold, yanking him down to her height so that his body is bent over backwards, and slashes at his throat so easily he doesn’t have time to say a word. She waits for the blood to drain from his face, for his pulse to still, then drags his lifeless body after her, walking swiftly to the first dead body.

“And you think for me it’s killing?” she seethes, staring daggers into the nogitsune before rearranging Stiles #2 next to Stiles #1. They still deserve to be respected.

“Stop being dense, Lydia. I have all of his memories, all of his thoughts. You know perfectly well what your weakness is.”

“I have no idea,” she responds, smirking when its face warps in genuine frustration.

 ***

The only time her head isn’t wrapped up in Stiles is when she slides under soapy tub water and stays submerged until she almost blacks out.

 ***

After Lydia’s through all five of the not Stiles, their bodies lined up in a neat row like pencils on her school desk, she throws up in a corner and a Stiles holds back her hair.

With her back still keeled over, she tries to catch her breath, steering her thoughts away from the combination of Stiles and heaviness. 

“I still have 20 of you and I – I can’t,” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hands. For the first time, she ducks her face, grits her teeth until they feel ready to crack, and sobs.

Stiles watches her sadly. “Remember when you and I were in the woods and your foot was stuck on that trap?”

Lydia grimaces. “Great, you all have his memories, too?”

He nods. “You said I was the one who figures it out, but you were forgetting who was always with me. You. I could never have solved anything without you.”

From the other side of the room, the nogitsune snarls at her to hurry up.

“I think one of the others won.” Lydia remarks. The hope that those words are true is the only thing holding her together. She picks up her knife from the ground, doesn’t bother to wipe off the caked blood anymore. “Stiles, I need you to do something for me and you’re not going to like it.”

“Anything.”

She looks away. “Turn around.”

 ***

The reality of growing up a genius is everyone expects you to know how to deal.

She is too smart for her own good, smarter than her parents, and her friends, and her teachers, and Stiles.

But the banshee bit is out of her control and she can’t deal. Sometimes she wishes she could blame Peter or hand off the curse of her genetic mutant of a cranium to someone else.

Lydia is unforgivably smart. IQ that would kill someone’s brain cells to know. But, she barely qualifies as a good person.

 ***

There’s a Stiles. She doesn’t let him speak. That’s a rule. The only one, really, but she squats in front of him and stares until her eyes go blurry. He looks exactly right, the right amount of lean and muscle and sheer dumb luck. She keeps him aside and moves onto another.

Count update: 18 dead, 7 remains. There are bloodstains on her she’s scared will never come off.

 ***

After the kid died, gasping for breath until he didn’t anymore, Scott carried him to the trunk of Lydia’s car.

 _I have bleach, for later_ , he said softly. She nodded and pushed the unlock button. Derek sat on the concrete bumper and won’t take his eyes off of the ground.

 ***

When she has two Stiles left, and every inch of her screams with wary fatigue, she slumps onto the floor and slides the knife towards the nogitsune.

“I give up. I’m done,” she exhales, scrunching herself up as small as she can, hands wrapped around her legs.

The nogitsune slams his fists against the wall once, twice, three times. “No!” he yells. “No! No! Finish the game. Kill him.”

“I’m the last, aren’t I?” she says, resting the back of head against the wall. She shuts her eyes and thinks of her bed. “They both did their part, Scott and his dad, didn’t they? That’s why only I can kill him.”

The nogitsune is silent for an extended period of time, before he snickers in her ear. “I’m sadistic, but you’re pathetic.”

She ignores him. A hand touches her shoulder and she flinches away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Sorry,” the voice says, and it sounds so much like her Stiles, something breaks inside of her.

Her eyes flutter open. It’s the Stiles she pulled aside earlier. He gives her a small half smile and sits down, pulls his legs up, mirrors her. The tips of their shoes touch. Stiles #24, she thinks, and winces inwardly.

Stiles #24 checks over his shoulder. The nogitsune is far across the room, pacing back and forth. He turns back. “I’m not him,” he whispers.

Lydia’s mouth twitches and she looks imploringly at him. “How can you be sure?”

“Just know.” He shrugs. “I think it’s because I came from him. I feel the same things for you as he does, and I want to belong to you in the same ways, but I don’t.”

“It could have done something to you,” she says, distressed. The other choice stands a few yards off to the side with a blank look, so unlike Stiles she has a crushing desire to stab his face. “Modified you to make you think you aren’t the real one.”

Stiles #24 shakes his head slowly, thumps the membranes and the cartilage and the skin over his heart. “Not this. Never this. I’m just a weak imitation.”

He scoots over and grabs her knife. “You have to. You never give up. And I know your preferred method is throat slitting, but could you do me this one solid?” he asks, placing the tip over the same spot on his chest. He gingerly takes her hands and wraps it around the handle.

“I began and ended with you. Poetic justice, don’t you think?” Stiles #24 chuckles darkly as he angles his head up so he can’t see.

With reservoirs in her eyes, Lydia adamantly shakes her head. “There’s no justice in this,” she answers, but she keeps hold of the handle even when his hands draw away.

It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay, just push in hard. One hard push and it’ll be over.”

Lydia takes a huge gulp to steady herself, twists her hands for a better placement, recalling every tennis lesson on proper gripping, says a silent goodbye, and thrusts with all her might.

 ***

 _Who’s my guard tonight_? The text came shortly after Aiden brushed aside a stray strand of hair stuck to her lip gloss.  

 _Your dad_ , she typed, holding up an index finger. Aiden groaned.

For four minutes, no reply arrived. Lydia tapped her foot impatiently. She was about to slip her phone into her purse, Aiden already licking flames at her ear, when it vibrated.

_This isn’t working. I can still feel it inside of me. It might be time for Plan B._

Lydia stiffened. Pulled away. Her fingers glided like lightning on the phone screen.

_There is no Plan B. There is only you getting better._

***

Stiles #24 hits the ground with a quick thud. A pool of scarlet blooms from him.

The nogitsune claps both hands on the last Stiles’ shoulders and pushes him forward. “The destined one. You like the look on this one, huh?” It grabs and pinches his cheeks, creating makeshift dimples. “Handsome dapper if I may say so myself.”

Lydia doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s in the home stretch; the nogitsune hasn’t immediately bled him dry, so she must be right, but her hand is still tight enough around the knife handle to form callouses and the other balled up in a fist, ready to fight.

Stiles #25 has to be him. She rests her hands on one side of his face, and strokes upwards gently with her thumb, knowing it won’t do her much good; she has nothing to compare it to, doesn’t truly know what Stiles’ face feels like so much as imagines how it would behind closed doors. The experience alone of being so close, though, mainly feels like enough. But, that’s the caveat. Stiles never makes her feel just enough.

Without hesitation, Lydia situates the knife and pushes it up the base of Stiles #25’s skull, presses until she feels the impact of solid mass. Then, she steps back and lets him sway, blood spewing out of his mouth and down his chin, and collapse, the knife stuck where she left it.

“What have you done?” the nogitsune roars, his body shaking with anger.

“You’re a trickster. And this was a trick,” she says, panting. “I realized something. You would never let him out of your sight, not for a single moment, not brash, unpredictable Stiles. He would have undermined you somehow. He always finds a way. There was only one possible solution. You’re him.”

The nogitsune advances, his face contorting in abnormal ways, possessed, but then faults start appearing, cracked lines, as if someone had taken a hammer to it. The lines get deeper and spread like an epidemic across his whole frame, until, with a final loud roar, he crumbles. A cloud of dust kicks up around him. The shedding of a persistent outer layer.

Lydia rushes to him, drags as much of him onto her lap as possible. “Stiles? Stiles? Can you hear me?”

He moans in reply and she squeezes him tight. Strokes his face because now she can.

“It’s over. We all won,” she whispers into his gaped mouth before sealing it shut with kiss after kiss.

“You’re alive. You’re alive.” She repeats, resting her forehead on his.

That is mainly for her.

 ***

They sat side by side on the floor of his bedroom. She had brought over his missed homework as a greeting, left largely ignored on his desk. Neither of them mentioned the texts.

 _Y_ ou _know what I decided?_ he eventually asked.

_What?_

_I’m really fucking scared of everything._ He smiled ruefully.

Lydia bit her words, knew, with sadness that ached, he would never be fully right. The well-meaning, meddlesome brat was gone, replaced by a boy who discovered too much of the world.

 _Well, do you know what I’m really afraid of, like the number one thing I can think of?_ She swallowed hard, but never looked away. _Losing you._

 


End file.
